Dory opened the bag at his feet, gave his father a roll of paper. "Pleaselook it over, and make any changes you like."

Dr. Hargrave began the reading then and there. He had not finished thefirst paragraph when Dory interrupted with, "Why, Del, you're passingour turning."

Del grew crimson. The doctor, without looking up or taking his mind offthe address, said: "Adelaide gave up Mrs. Dorsey's house several weeksago. You are living with us."

Dory glanced at her quickly and away. She said nothing. "He'llunderstand," thought she--and she was right.

Only those who have had experience of the older generation out Westwould have suspected the pride, the affection, the delight hiding behindMartha Skeffington's prim and formal welcome, or that it was notindifference but the unfailing instinct of a tender heart that made hersay, after a very few minutes: "Adelaide, don't you think Dory'd like tolook at the rooms?"

Del led the way, Dory several feet behind her--deliberately, lest heshould take that long, slender form of hers in his arms that he mightagain feel her bosom swelling and fluttering against him, and her fine,thick, luminous hair caressing his temple and his cheek. Miss Skeffingtonhad given them the three large rooms on the second floor--the two Doryused to have and one more for Del. As he followed Del into the sittingroom he saw that there had been changes, but he could not note them. Shewas not looking at him; she seemed to be in a dream, or walking with theslow deliberate steps one takes in an unfamiliar and perilous path.

"That is still your bedroom," said she, indicating one of the doors."A stationary stand has been put in. Perhaps you'd like to freshenup a bit."

She hesitated, went into her room, not quite closing the door behind her.He stared at it with a baffled look. "And," he was thinking, "I imaginedI had trained myself to indifference." An object near the window caughthis eye--a table at which he could work standing. He recalled that he hadseen its like in a big furniture display at Paris when they were theretogether, and that he had said he would get one for himself some day.This hint that there might be more than mere matter in those surroundingsset his eyes to roving. That revolving bookcase by the desk, the circularkind he had always wanted, and in it the books he liked to have athand--Montaigne and Don Quixote, Shakespeare and Shelley and Swinburne,the Encyclopedia, the statistical yearbooks; on top, his favorites amongthe magazines. And the desk itself--a huge spread of cleared surface--anenormous blotting pad, an ink well that was indeed a well--all just whathe had so often longed for as he sat cramped at little desks where anattempt to work meant overflow and chaos of books and papers. And thatbig inlaid box--it was full of his favorite cigarettes; and thedrop-light, and the green shade for the eyes, and the row of pencilssharpened as he liked them--

He knocked at her door. "Won't you come out here a moment?" cried he,putting it in that form because he had never adventured her intimatethreshold.

No answer, though the door was ajar and she must have heard.

"Please come out here," he repeated.

A pause; then, in her voice, shy but resolute, the single word, "Come!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE DEAD THAT LIVE

On the green oval within and opposite the entrance to the main campus ofthe great university there is the colossal statue of a master workman.The sculptor has done well. He does not merely show you the physicalman--the mass, the strength, of bone and sinew and muscle; he reveals theman within--the big, courageous soul. Strangers often think this statue apersonation of the force which in a few brief generations has erectedfrom a wilderness our vast and splendid America. And it is that; but toArthur and Adelaide, standing before it in a June twilight, long afterthe events above chronicled, it is their father--Hiram.